Git VS vscode-gitlens

Compare Git vs vscode-gitlens and see what are their differences.

Git

Git Source Code Mirror - This is a publish-only repository but pull requests can be turned into patches to the mailing list via GitGitGadget (https://gitgitgadget.github.io/). Please follow Documentation/SubmittingPatches procedure for any of your improvements. (by git)

vscode-gitlens

Supercharge Git inside VS Code and unlock untapped knowledge within each repository — Visualize code authorship at a glance via Git blame annotations and CodeLens, seamlessly navigate and explore Git repositories, gain valuable insights via rich visualizations and powerful comparison commands, and so much more (by gitkraken)
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Git vscode-gitlens
285 19
49,844 8,747
1.7% 1.3%
10.0 9.9
6 days ago 4 days ago
C TypeScript
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later GNU General Public License v3.0 or later
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

Git

Posts with mentions or reviews of Git. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-02-13.
  • GitHub Git Mirror Down
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 11 Apr 2024
  • Four ways to solve the "Remote Origin Already Exists" error.
    1 project | dev.to | 28 Mar 2024
  • So You Think You Know Git – Git Tips and Tricks by Scott Chacon
    6 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 13 Feb 2024
    Boy, I can't find this either (but also, the kernel mailing list is _really_ difficult to search). I really remember Linus saying something like "it's not a real SCM, but maybe someone could build one on top of it someday" or something like that, but I cannot figure out how to find that.

    You _can_ see, though, that in his first README, he refers to what he's building as not a "real SCM":

    https://github.com/git/git/commit/e83c5163316f89bfbde7d9ab23...

  • Maintain-Git.txt
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 6 Feb 2024
  • Git Commit Messages by Jeff King
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 1 Feb 2024
    Here is the direct link, as HN somehow removes the query string: https://github.com/git/git/commits?author=peff&since=2023-10...
  • Git commit messages by Jeff King
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 1 Feb 2024
  • My favourite Git commit (2019)
    8 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 1 Feb 2024
  • Do we think of Git commits as diffs, snapshots, and/or histories?
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 6 Jan 2024
    I understand all that.

    I'm saying, if you write a survey and one of the possible answers is "diff", but you don't clearly define what you mean by "diff", then don't be surprised if respondents use any reasonable definition that makes sense to them. Ask an ambiguous question, get a mishmash of answers.

    The thing that Git uses for packfiles is called a "delta" by Git, but it's also reasonable to call it a "diff". After all, Git's delta algorithm is "greatly inspired by parts of LibXDiff from Davide Libenzi"[1]. Not LibXDelta but LibXDiff.

    Yes, how Git stores blobs (using deltas) is orthogonal to how Git uses blobs. But while that orthogonality is useful for reasoning about Git, it's not wrong to think of a commit as the totality of what Git does, including that optimization. (Some people, when learning Git, stumble over the way it's described as storing full copies, think it's wasteful. For them to wrap their heads around Git, they have to understand that the optimization exists. Which makes sense because Git probably wouldn't be practical if it lacked that optimization.)

    The reason I'm bringing all this up is, if you're trying to explain Git, which is what the original article is about, then it's very important to keep in mind that someone who is learning Git needs to know what you mean when you say "diff". Most people who already know Git would tend to gravitate toward the definition of "diff" that you're assuming (the thing that Git computes on the fly and never stores), but people who already know Git aren't the target audience when you're teaching Git.

    ---

    [1] https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/diff-delta.c

  • The State of Merging Technology
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 13 Dec 2023
    Didn't Git have a new default merge strategy, `ort` https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/RelNote... ?
  • The bash book to rule them all
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 25 Nov 2023
    Yes, but you are referring to standalone scripts, not functions defined within a Bash script.

    Compare for example the following helper code used for git command completion inside Bash and inside PowerShell.

    Bash: https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/contrib/completion/gi...

vscode-gitlens

Posts with mentions or reviews of vscode-gitlens. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-12-21.
  • The Loneliness of the Mid-Level Vimmer
    11 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 21 Dec 2023
  • Why Git Is Hard
    3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 7 Oct 2023
    IntelliJ: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/investigate-changes.html

    VSCode:

    https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=mhutchie...

    or https://github.com/gitkraken/vscode-gitlens#commit-graph-

    SourceTree: https://confluence.atlassian.com/sourcetreekb/viewing-log-hi...

  • Came back to Git Graph after several months of using GitLens+
    2 projects | /r/vscode | 6 Mar 2023
    Quite a while ago, the GitLens+ plugin gained the Commit Graph feature--the same graph you see in GitKraken. Until then I had used Git Graph for visualizing my repositories and GitLens+ for git blame in the GUI. Since one plugin could now do both, the natural course of action was to remove the other--goodbye, Git Graph!
  • Why I love GitLens in my VsCode - Part 1
    2 projects | dev.to | 13 Feb 2023
    Btw, today I want to speak about something different, I love git and I love terminal, but sometimes I love having the info visualised appealingly and get info about the source control quickly. I work with VsCode typically, so some months ago I tried to find a solution for this editor that resolves what was said before. After googling and some testing, the result of my search was: GitLens. Now, I want to show you how it works and how it can improve your routine. So don't waste time and let's jump in it!
  • Both are good, what would you pick?
    4 projects | /r/ProgrammerHumor | 1 Sep 2022
    GitLens extension chef's kiss
  • tig blame online
    2 projects | dev.to | 21 Jun 2022
    for GitLens https://gitlens.amod.io/
  • GitLens adds “Premium Features” and enough reminders that you don't miss them
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 1 Mar 2022
  • The Myth of Self-Documenting Code
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 18 Oct 2021
    The better version is to have something like gitlens installed into your IDE and have it dynamically render those git comments.

    https://github.com/Axosoft/vscode-gitlens#current-line-blame...

  • where add.
    1 project | /r/ProgrammerHumor | 9 Oct 2021
    I learned the cli first, but I do use vscode's git integration for staging and committing. I also love gitlens's "commits by file / line" feature.
  • Replacing GitKraken
    2 projects | /r/vscode | 30 Jul 2021
    Hi. Vs code is pretty well integrated with git. There are built in git support and a couple other plugins. For example, the most popular git plugin for vs code is git lens. It also has powerful rebase editor (i guess, it is my favorite feature), which you can enable by following this guide. I personally realy enjoing Git Graph extension, which allow you to observe your git history in pretty similar to git kraken way. It also provide navigation facilities and some other useful features.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Git and vscode-gitlens you can also consider the following projects:

scalar - Scalar: A set of tools and extensions for Git to allow very large monorepos to run on Git without a virtualization layer

vscode-jupyter - VS Code Jupyter extension

PineappleCAS - A generic computer algebra system targeted for the TI-84+ CE calculators

vscode-emacs-mcx - Awesome Emacs Keymap - VSCode emacs keybinding with multi cursor support

Subversion - Mirror of Apache Subversion

linux - Linux kernel source tree

CodeMaid - CodeMaid is an open source Visual Studio extension to cleanup and simplify our C#, C++, F#, VB, PHP, PowerShell, JSON, XAML, XML, ASP, HTML, CSS, LESS, SCSS, JavaScript and TypeScript coding.

chromebrew - Package manager for Chrome OS [Moved to: https://github.com/chromebrew/chromebrew]

gitui - Blazing 💥 fast terminal-ui for git written in rust 🦀

jj - A Git-compatible VCS that is both simple and powerful

vscode-git-graph - View a Git Graph of your repository in Visual Studio Code, and easily perform Git actions from the graph.